Bright New Stars to Attend the Yamaha VR46 Master Camp

Six young Yamaha stars are about to embark on an exciting chapter in their racing career at the third edition of the Yamaha VR46 Master Camp. The selected students will be taken under the wings of Valentino Rossi, the VR46 Riders Academy and its riders, three-time English Flat Track Champion and two-time American and European Flat Track Champion Marco Belli, and many more racing experts from May 10th – 14th, 2017, to improve their racing skills.

As with the two previous editions, the new Master Camp riders will travel to Rossi‘s hometown of Tavullia in Italy. There they will receive instruction and guidance to further their racing careers during an extensive training programme (you can watch a summary video of the first Master Camp HERE and of the second edition HERE).

For the third edition, participants were chosen from among young Yamaha riders based in Asia, Oceania and North America, depending on their age, talent and championship standings. The new Yamaha VR46 Master Camp rider line-up includes Thailand‘s Peerapong Boonlert (18), Indonesia‘s Anggi Setiawan (18), Japan‘s Shota Ite (15), Malaysia‘s Muhammad Akid bin Aziz (18), Australia‘s Brandon Demmery (19) and Canada‘s Tomas Casas (17). The fourth edition, to be held later this year in July, will see European and South American riders attending the training programme.

The planned curriculum has full-time VR46 Riders Academy instructors teaching the Master Camp students various riding techniques as well as providing them with the necessary technical knowledge to make it on a World Championship racing level. The participants will put their skills to the test in various racing activities on YZ250Fsat Rossi‘s Motor Ranch, on YZF-R3s at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, and on mini-bikes at a go-karts circuit.

There will be lots of fun and laughter over the five days of training, but the hours will be filled with hard work. The stakes are high for the young riders as they hope to follow in the footsteps of second Master Camp edition participant Apiwat Wongthananon (Thailand, 23), who last year secured Yamaha‘s first-ever AP250 Championship Title and went on to kick start his international racing career as a member of the VR46 Master Camp Team in the Moto3 Junior World Championship class of the 2017 FIM CEV International Championship.

News, images and updates from the Yamaha VR46 Master Camp will be posted regularly on its dedicated media channels throughout the third edition:

Yamaha VR46 Master Camp Special Site: http://race.yamaha-motor.co.jp/sp/vr46ra/

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP website: www.yamahamotogp.com

Facebook: @YamahaVR46MasterCamp

Twitter: @YamahaVR46MasterCamp

Instagram: @YamahaVR46MasterCamp

Youtube: @YamahaMotoGP

The Yamaha VR46 Master Camp project is about to start its third edition. The first two successful editions are still fresh in our memories and we are therefore even more excited to start this second year. We are taking a next step in helping young Yamaha talent globally. The new Master Camp protégées are a diverse group, they hail from six different countries in Asia, Oceania and North America. They can look forward a five-day training programme full of exciting challenges and opportunities to further their racing skills. We saw that the previous students absorbed all the information very fast and the instructors affirmed the progress the pupils demonstrated. The skills they acquired at the Master Camp were put to good use, as underlined in their 2016 race results. For example, Apiwat secured Yamaha‘s first AP250 Championship Title and he made the step-up to racing on an international level in the Moto3 class of the CEV season, as a rider for the VR46 Master Camp Team. We hope his schedule will allow him to meet the new students, so he can fill the role of mentor to the six new Master Camp students, along with his VR46 Academy colleagues.

I would like to thank Valentino and the VR46 Riders Academy for the great effort they put in to organise a training programme that prepares ambitious Yamaha youngsters both practically and theoretically for world class competitive racing.

It‘s already the third Master Camp, but it‘s still as exciting for me as the first edition. Yamaha and VR46 started the programme last year to help young talent and we saw great results in the first two groups. All the guys picked up new skills and Apiwat even went on to start his international career in the CEV Championship for the VR46 Master Camp Team. It‘s something very special that the Master Camp programme was able to make such a difference to his career and give him this opportunity. The idea that we‘re about to start another adventure with six new young riders makes me really happy. We look forward to welcoming them to Tavullia. The VR46 Academy riders will have a new group to mentor and I‘m sure it is going to be a lot of fun, but also hard work! Like in the previous editions, the instructors will push the students both on and off the track, to bring them closer to their goals.

In an effort to support young Italian riders aiming to become world-class racers, Valentino Rossi decided to put his vast experience and knowledge from his many years of racing to good use in 2014 and established the VR46 Riders Academy.

In March 2016 Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. entered into a formal three-year partnership agreement with the VR46 Riders Academy as an Official Partner and also as its Official Motorcycle Supplier.

In July of 2016 Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. and the VR46 Riders Academy staged the inaugural Yamaha VR46 Master Camp with the goal of helping selected young Yamaha talent make their way in the racing world by increasing their skills and experience.

The Yamaha VR46 Master Camp is a non-profit programme put together by Yamaha and its partners in collaboration with the VR46 Riders Academy. The riders for the third edition of the Yamaha VR46 Master Campwere selected by the Asian, Oceanic and North American Yamaha distributors. The line-up is based on the riders’ talent and promise in the racing industry. A place in the Yamaha VR46 Master Camp can’t be bought.

In the future Yamaha aims to do a similar programme with Yamaha distributors in other parts of the world.

Yamaha is currently in the process of creating a step-up model and system to provide tier-based opportunities for young riders to further develop their careers.